China detains hunger-striking dissidents: activist – Reuters

Chinese police have rounded up at least eight democracy campaigners involved in hunger strikes that have spread to more than 16 provinces, a leading activist said on Friday.

Most of those detained in the past 10 days had gone on hunger strikes to protest what they call increasingly violent harassment of dissidents by the government, Gao Zhisheng, a Beijing-based lawyer, told Reuters by telephone.

“It’s because we have made the government look really bad by the hunger strikes,” Gao said of the reason for the round-up. “And its only way to resolve differences with its own people is violence.”